Swatches – Carpe Noctem Clear Skies and Interstellar Towel

Hi everyone! I’m still here – yes, I am! So…ummm…I’ve been away for a while… A combination of various factors ended up keeping me away from my blog for a month and a half, the biggest one being that I’ve been putting in a lot more time at work. Usually when I come home on weekdays, I’m too tired to paint my nails at all, let alone do nail art. Also, I shifted my spare time towards another creative hobby of mine – sewing – so that I could complete a gorgeous new Renaissance costume for this year’s faire (which is AWESOME). But, yeah, I’ve been away from my blog for a while, which isn’t something I wanted to happen. Hopefully I can get back into blogging more frequently now that I’m not doing as much sewing, and I can eventually move through the backlog of things I’ve wanted to write about (especially the subscription boxes!).

Before I get around to the subscription box posts, though, I thought I’d post some swatches of a few polishes I wore recently by an indie brand named Carpe Noctem Cosmetics. I don’t exactly remember how Carpe Noctem first came to my attention, but I somehow found their Etsy shop and I liked a number of polishes they had and placed an order. They have some gorgeous holographics and shimmers, and the best part is that they offer multiple sizes of the same colors so you can buy smaller (and less expensive) bottles if you want! Since I have photos of some of the polishes I’ve worn, I thought I’d share them: here are Carpe Noctem Clear Skies and Interstellar Towel!

Carpe Noctem Clear Skies is a lovely cool, cornflower blue holographic polish with a strong pink shimmer that isn’t translating well into my photos  – definitely a gorgeous polish to look at. It does give me the impression of a late afternoon sky, when the clouds turn pink at sunset but the skies are still blue. The holographic effect is quite visible most of the time, but not overwhelmingly so. Anyways, the formula of this polish is pretty easy to work with, but a bit sheer. My swatches show two coats, which is almost enough to cover up my nail line but not quite (my nail line was less prominent in real life, though). If I was to wear this one again, I’d probably do three coats.

Interstellar Towel is a very deep, dark plum-to-forest green duochrome shimmer polish. This particular shade was not at all what I expected based on some of the photos I saw on Carpe Noctem’s Etsy page. To me a few of the photos appeared to show a medium, amber-to-green multichrome polish, and this is not at all what it ended up being (the blogger swatches are more accurate). All the same, I did like the color a lot, and chose to wear this one recently because I’ve been drawn to dark colors. Think of this polish like a darker, blackened version of Zoya Ki: deep, plum purple when viewed straight on, and dark forest green when viewed at an angle. The formula was quite good and I achieved full coverage in two smooth coats, although I’d recommend putting down a thick first coat to prevent patchiness.

I hope you’ve liked my post! I’d really love to keep blogging more frequently than I have been in the past three months, so hopefully my next post will be out sooner than a month and a half from now! Anyways, thanks for reading!

– Emi